Gremlins. Joe Dante. 1984.

My stash of unseen movies was getting low (just 150) so I started looking around for more more more stuff to watch. And I thought: “Hm! What about those cool American Gothic movies of the 80s? Kathryn Bigelow and the Coen brothers and stuff…”

So after buying those, Amazon recommended buying Gremlins, and that’s why I’m watching Gremlins.

Again, because I’ve probably watched it at least a couple of times before. But back in the 80s. I remember really loving this, but being scared shitless watching it when I was like sixteen. Or am I thinking of a different movie?

[time passes]

OK, I’m fifteen minutes in, and this is so much goofier than I remember. It’s basically a 30s pastiche? These characters are straight out of a Capra movie! I love it!

[time passes]

At 45 minutes in I’m kinda bored. I mean… not totally bored, but things are just kinda sloppy. There’s a lot of fun scenes, but it’s like we’re waiting for the movie to begin. But even so, it has nerve.

[more time passes]

The nerve kind of went away, and now it’s kinda lame. I mean, the bar scene is fun, but it’s so weird with all the wintery outdoors scenes shot on a studio lot. One disturbing thing about all these shenanigans is that the evil Gremlins seem like they have human-level intelligence (i.e. kinda dumb but fun), but still killing them is all fun and games?

There’s one black character, and he’s killed off early (which is typical). What’s more unusual is that the female characters are pretty kick ass.

And also… I thought this took pace in a skyscraper? Is that the second movie? Is that the scary one?

Dixiana. Luther Reed. 1930.

“You know, my slaves sing better than anybody else’s slaves… I think I’ll go down there and free a couple of the tenors now.”

That’s the opening line.

Well, it’s from 1930, and it’s among the first wave of talkies, and as such, it’s not a atypical mix of skits, stage performances and a romantic plot. It’s probably this kind of movie critics were talking about when they talked about talkies as a fad and real art would make a comeback with silent movies.

It’s pretty nonsensical, but the songs are OK, I guess. And there’s a couple of fun skits. And some not very fun skits at all.

Borderline. William A. Seiter. 1950.

I think this is from that public domain box set? Perhaps? The transfer quality is pretty good, though, so perhaps that’s wrong.

Anyway, this is a… comedy film noir with undercover agents and stuff. In “Mexico”. Well, OK, perhaps not a comedy, but not serious either.

I have to admit that I kinda lost track of where the plot was going because I was checking email and stuff, so perhaps this really is a brilliant movie?

So while it isn’t very engrossing, I do kinda like it. The performances are solid and the cinematography is appealing, if pretty standard. It’s just not… thrilling.

It’s workmanlike. It almost works, but it needed better dialogue and a sillier plot.